With
regard to the acceptance by Archduke Maximillian of the throne of
Mexico, we are informed, on good authority, that the Archduke is
personally inclined to accept the crown, and that he confidently
believes the negotiations on foot will lead to practical results. It
seems that he is already occupied in making arrangements in regard to
the persons who are to accompany him, and that he has confidentially
spoken to several persons on this subject. But we are informed from the
same source that the Emperor is less favorable to the acceptance, and
that he has distinctly notified to his brother that he must not
calculate on the support of Austria in case of any difficulty arising
out of the affair. Notwithstanding this declaration on the part of the
Emperor, the Archduke has resolved to accept the crown.

[Vienna
(August 24) correspondence of the Boersenhalle of Hamburg]

We
have been informed that the Mexican question will especially occupy the
attention of the Austrian diplomatists assembled at Frankfurt. Prince
Metternich and Count d’Apponyl, the Austrian Ambassadors at Paris and
London, are already there, and it appears that Lord Clarendon’s
arrival is connected with the same question. We have reason to believe
that the English Government has recommended extreme prudence in coming
to a decision on the acceptance of the Mexican crown by the Archduke
Maximillian. It would seem that this advice has been followed, and we
can affirm that, for some days past, the chances of the Archduke’s
acceptance have rather diminished than increased.

The
Paris correspondent of the London Herald
says that there is a report that well-known shipbuilding firms at Havre
and Bordeaux are building cruisers for the Confederate States; but it is
probably a canard.

[Paris
(August 27) correspondence of the London Post]

Mexico and the United States.—For
some days past the Americans of the Northern Union have been loud in
their assertions that President Lincoln had made a communication to the
Emperor of the French that would make him repent his march upon Mexico.
By most persons conversant with the state of American affairs this was
treated as “bunkum.” The Patrie,
however, last night seemed to be authorized to tell the world that a
protest relating to the late political events in Mexico had been
forwarded by the last American packet boat, the City
of Cork, and that it was to be presented this week by the American
Ambassador to the Court of the Tulleries. The government of Mr. Lincoln,
it was asserted by that journal, invoked the Monroe doctrine, and
broadly state that the possession of Mexico was a menace to American
independence and an encouragement given to the secessionists.

La
France and La Temps affirm that the rumor of any protest is unfounded.

The
Patrie, with its usual
demonstration of hostility towards England, says that its private
letters from New York attribute the decision of Mr. Lincoln to take this
step towards France to the representations made by the Ministers of
England and Russia to the Cabinet of Washington.->

[Paris
(August 27) correspondence of the London Times]

The Silver Mines of Real del Monte Seized by the
French.—A
letter from Pachuca, dated June 20, tells of a successful expedition
sent from Mexico [City] by Marshal Forey, under the command of Col.
Aymard, of the 62d regiment. The force consisted of 2000 infantry, 400
horses and a section of mountain artillery. The object of the expedition
was to obtain possession of Pachuca and the silver mines of Real del
Monte. Pachuca, which is sixty miles from Mexico [City], is reached by a
well paved road through a highly cultivated country. It was known at
Mexico that Pachuca had been fortified, and that it was defended by 4000
Mexicans, under command of Gen. Orellano. A stout resistance was
consequently expected. It was known, further, that the population were
ill disposed towards the French, and that they had given a most
flattering reception to the fugitive Gen. Ortega.

When
the French troops arrived before the gates of Pachuca, they were
agreeably surprised to find that gen. Orellano had decamped with his
small army, and that the authorities of the town were waiting to give up
possession to Col. Aymard. An hour later the French officers ate the
breakfast which had been intended for Gen. Orellano and his staff. The
population of Pachuca, which is estimated at nine thousand, is described
as being composed of adventurers from England, France, Germany and
America. The same class is to be found at Real del Monte and the other
mining districts. The Juarists left behind them at Pachuca a sum of
200,000 francs, which they had not had time to carry off. The French
will probably remain at Pachuca to protect the mining at Real del Monte,
from which they expect to derive large sums.

•••••

All
Sorts.

In
Paris lately a very singular kind of carriage has been noticed driving
about the Boulevards. Through some peculiar machinery, the body of the
carriage, which consists of four seats, is so constructed as to go round
and round incessantly, very much in the same way as one sees the
merry-go-round at fairs. This enables those seated to see everything
that they pass, or that passes them, when driving; but the amusement
will probably be stopped, as it is no doubt of a revolutionary tendency.

Canadians
who have passed themselves off in Vermont three different times as
substitutes, are riding about Montreal with fast horses and cigars in
their mouths.

A
malicious doctor says that if a lawyer is in danger of starving in a
small village, he invites another, and both thrive.

Our
Plaquemines correspondent writes us that the present dry weather is very
favorable to planters and farmers. Cotton picking is now general in that
section. The rice crop has been secured, and grain has a clean and
healthy appearance. The cane fields promise a fair yield. The public
health is good for theseason
of the year. Flocks of wild ducks are coming to the marshes, and
mosquitoes are more numerous than ever.

Ohio
and Illinois exchanges give a very discouraging picture of eh injury
inflicted upon the crops in all that region by the recent frosts. In
Central Illinois the corn and tobacco were swept down by the thousand
acres, and there was ice an eighth of an inch thick.

MONDAYSEPTEMBER 21,
1863THE
DAILY RICHMOND EXAMINER (VA)

The
great dorsal ridge separating the basin of the Mississippi from the
Atlantic region, which constitutes so prominent a feature in the
physical geography of the continent, has been scarcely less marked in
the present wars as the dividing line of the good and evil fortunes of
the Confederacy. While, on this side of the Alleghanies, our arms have
been illustrated by a series of victories brilliant beyond what could
have been reasonably expected from a comparison of the resources of the
belligerents, and the territory of the enemy subjected to the
humiliation of invasion by a people of a third of their numbers, to the
west of that chain we have met with almost uninterrupted disaster. The
tide of war has borne us steadily backwards from the commanding position
we occupied in the heart of Kentucky, with complete control of the
Mississippi, until our train of misfortune seems to have reached a
climax in the abandonment of the whole State of Tennessee, and worst of
all, the ignominious surrender of so strong a position as Cumberland
Gap, which was held last year by a Yankee garrison against our advancing
forces with a pertinacity that our generals have not emulated, and, at
length, successfully evacuated. So unbroken have been our reverses in
that quarter, and so delusive the few gleams of transitory success which
have occasionally cheated the hopes of the country, that the report of a
western victory is now received by the public with a quiet skepticism,
and an uneasy expectation of further intelligence, which rarely fails to
justify our slowness in believing what our hearts desire. If the
electric current bears to us the glad tidings of a brilliant victory
gained by our troops, of the routed adversary and captured guns and
prisoners on one day, an ominous silence succeeds, then follow vague and
sinister rumors of reverses, and at length the halting truth comes
forward, telling of victory snatched from our grasp or turned to bloody
defeat. Such is the history of Shiloh, Murfreesboro’, and Corinth.

The
contrast between the two theatres of the war has been marked and
striking. True, the picture is not entirely free from lights and shadows
on either side. Roanoke Island has somewhat marred the one, while the
first day of Shiloh, the brilliant forays of Morgan, Wheeler and
Forrest, and the unexpected success with which for more than a year
Vicksburg defied three successive expeditions, until an evil star shed
its malignant influence over her, light up the sombre tints of the
other. The steady tendency and actual result on each side is, however
clear and unmistakable. Two years ago our army was encamped at Bowling
Green, and our batteries, on the beetling cliff of Columbus, scowled
defiance to Cairo; now we hold a position on the borders of Georgia, and
await the enemy’s advance in the interior of Mississippi. Chattanooga
is in the enemy’s hands, and the line of the Tennessee, fortified by
the hand of nature, and, as we are told, susceptible of defense by a
small body of troops against a numerous army, has been yielded without
an attempt at resistance.

If
these continual retreats are a necessary part of a general defensive
policy, and links in the chain of great strategic combinations, however
mistaken may be the policy, or however great the losses unavoidably
entailed, not only upon the abandoned districts, but upon the country at
large. It is impossible, however, to put this construction upon retreats
preceded by an evident effort to avoid the necessity for such a resort,
nor where such obvious advantages are presented by a line of defense as
to make it clearly desirable to adhere to it, both for strictly military
reasons, as well as for those connected with the question of supply, and
the political state of affairs. The country has been accustomed to
regard the defensive positions assumed by General Bragg, as especially
->

connected
by considerations of that nature. Unless superior numbers have
overbalanced strength of situation, or a temporary retreat is part of a
net-work of manœuvres destined to entrap the enemy and result in
decisive military victory, retreat without a battle must be regarded as
eminently injudicious. Both moral and material losses unavoidably wait
upon retreat. “In a battle,”
says Marshal Saxe, “the loss is about equal on both sides; in retreat
it falls upon the retiring army.” The wily and cautious Rosencranz
will not fight unless supported by a superiority of numbers. He risks
nothing in the hope of brilliant victory and rapid triumph. His strategy
is an epitome of the war, immense concentration of numbers, cautious
advance, and slow encroachment upon our territory, such is the character
of the war, and the unenterprising nature of Yankee generals. If
Rosencranz is to be defeated, he must be attacked in positions where he
has lost no time in fortifying himself. If no movements are made by our
armies, he will rest contented with his gains, firmly establish a new
base of operations, and, in the next campaign, the question will recur,
whether we are to retreat again, or to accept battle in a new defensive
position.

The
supreme authority of Napoleon has decided that rivers present no
insuperable obstacle to an army. A feint, a rapid march, will always
elude the vigilance of the defenders, and the passage be effected.
Mountainous positions are more effectual barriers, yet they may in
general be flanked, and the army which occupies them forced to retire.
The most rocky defiles and frowning gorges have proved insufficient to
arrest the march of invading armies. Force or stratagem have overcome
all obstacles. The pass of Thermopylæ, though defended by the Spartan
and assailed by the Persian, served but to retard the advance of Xerxes.
The Cilician Gates were passed by Alexander and Heraclius. The narrow
pass of Somosierra was carried by a charge of Polish lancers, directed
by the sudden inspiration of Napoleon’s genius. It may be said that
treachery, accident or misconduct, have been to blame in those cases. It
may be fairly replied that a contingency which is found to take place in
a majority of instances has legitimate claims to be considered the rule,
and that we are justified by experience in relying with more confidence
on victory in the open field than in the vaunted strength of impregnable
positions. . .

The
defensive system has been much strengthened by the example of
Napoleon’s Russian campaign. . . The conditions of defensive warfare
are essentially different in Russia and the Confederacy. Immense extent
of territory is almost the only resemblance. The line of Napoleon’s
march was not thoroughly intersected by a system of navigable rivers,
nor had he the means of availing himself of them had they existed. The
command of the sea was not his. The vicinity of water was almost as
hateful to him as to Confederate generals. The Confederacy, on the other
hand, is interpenetrated by capacious rivers, on which we formerly
regarded with pride the commerce of a fruitful country, but which are
now treacherous highways for the hostile gunboats and transport. In a
country of this character, an enemy possessed of naval superiority
enjoys the advantage of being able to make his base at a point far
beyond the frontier, and is able to avoid the danger and inconveniences
usually attendant upon invasion.

TUESDAYSEPTEMBER 22, 1863THE
BOSTON DAILY ADVERTISER

A
New Rebel Idea.

A
letter from “one of the ablest citizens of Louisiana” is printed in
the Columbia South Carolinian.
He makes the following suggestion as to the means of conducting the war
in future:

“The
war, if continued, can no longer be conducted as it has been. Our
currency is so depreciated that it will soon cease to be available. I
see but one remedy. Let no more paper money be issued. Let the whole
Confederacy be divided into two classes–the combatants and the
producers. As long as this war shall last, every one of us must be
satisfied with shelter, food, and clothing, and nothing else. The
soldiers and officers, from the highest to the lowest, must fight
without pay. Why should they need money when provided with necessaries
and their families taken care of? Let all the resources and productions
of every farmer or planter be put at the disposal of the government,
without pay. Let every woman and every child old enough for the purpose
be made to work without pay. Let the President and every civil officer
of employé have no pay. In fact, let it be a penal offence to buy or
sell anything; but let food, raiment, shelter, and medicine be secured
to every one under a parish or county organization, controlled or
supervised by the General Government. In this way there would be no
further increase of our national debt; in fact, no currency would be
necessary for the time being, but every one who should have Confederate
notes in his pocket would then feel that they are good, and that he
would have something to fall back upon when peace is declared.

“It
is on this principle that Frederick the Great, when the existence of
Prussia was at stake, carried on successfully his famous seven years’
war against such odds as the world had never seen before and never seen
since. Berlin, his capital, was taken and sacked five or six times, and
his whole territory turned almost into a wilderness, but he came out of
that war without a cent of debt. Why? Because he seized upon the whole
of Prussia, and forced every human being in it to contribute to its
deliverance. He did not issue bonds, but parted with his silver spoons,
and expected the same sacrifice from all his subjects. He took
everything in the name of Prussia, and paid for nothing; we know with
what glorious results. Should we adopt such a policy, which would
instantly put a stop to the increase of our national debt and give the
world the sublime assurance of our determination not to fail–together
with the undeniable proof of the impossibility of our failing, because
of the very adoption of such a policy–the eight per cent bonds would
rise to 120 or 130 in Europe. The faith of so heroic a nation would no
longer be doubted. Those bonds would then be more eagerly sought after
than gold, and with them we would procure everything in the European
market. The North itself, which relies on our fast approaching
bankruptcy, would despair of triumphing over the South when transformed
into a vast camp and a vast national work shop.”

•••••

The
New York World says
editorially that private advices from New Orleans represent that
considerable feeling exists in New Orleans on the intervention question,
especially among the French and Creole population. This feeling had been
much stimulated by the latest mail from the North. It was known to the
French Consul at New Orleans and others that the French had occupied
Matamoras with 4000 or 5000 men within a few days. A collision was
anticipated between the French and Federal gunboats at the mouth of the
Rio Grande, on some matter connected with cotton and rebel supplies
there. The feeling in regard to intervention was recently indicated by
an advance of five per cent in rebel funds. Ex-Gov. Morehead, who is now
in Paris, it is positively alleged has written to friends in New York
that Napoleon and Jeff Davis have formed a secret treaty of recognition
through the agency of Slidell.

•••••

The
grave intelligence which comes to us from General Rosecrans gives a rude
shock to the universal confidence as to the swift and certain progress
of our arms in that section. It also justifies, we apprehend, the doubts
which have been expressed, particularly in the new Army
and Navy Journal, as to the correctness and safety of the plan on
which our operations in that quarter have been conducted. Rosecrans and
Burnside, while acting for the same general purpose, have been moving at
a great distance from each other, with no power of concentration at this
stage of the work. At the same time our other forces farther west, have
not only been too far removed to cooperate with Rosecrans, but have
themselves been divided and dispatched on various missions. Thus at the
critical moment and at the critical point our army has had its usual
fortune of being unable to use more than a fraction of its force,
although, we must add, that fraction was so large as to seem to insure
easy victory against anything that the enemy could oppose to it.

The
enemy, however, had no intention of abandoning the field. It now seems
that having resolved to make a desperate effort to free himself from the
deadly and tightening embrace of our armies, he selected General
Rosecrans’s department as that in which a blow might be struck with
the best advantage. He retreated from Tullahoma and from Chattanooga
rather than accept an unequal battle, but concentrated rapidly as he
fell back, and thus he has at last been able to contest the field with
our forces, which were weakened as they advanced and which, as have
seen, could as yet obtain nothing by concentration–and this at the
very moment when half the country seemed to doubt whether the fighting
was not pretty well finished!

WEDNESDAYSEPTEMBER 23, 1863THE
PORTLAND ADVERTISER (ME)

Bragg’s
Army–
Army of the Potomac.

New
York, Sept. 22.–A person who was with Bragg’s army some three
weeks estimates his force as follows: Bragg’s army 11,000, Forest’s
cavalry 14,000, Buckner’s corps 12,000, Johnston’s reinforcements
5,000, total 41,000. If to this be added Longstreet’s or Ewell’s
corps of 25,000 men, the whole force will net to 96,000 men.1
It is not by any means certain that any portion of Lee’s army has been
sent to Bragg.

The
Times’ Washington dispatch
says a movement of the Army of Potomac has commenced so far as to send
forward Buford’s cavalry across the Rapidan. The crossing was effected
without opposition.

It
is thought that but a feeble force of rebels intervene between Meade and
Richmond. Commanders who have doubted the accumulated evidence of many
detachments sent from Lee’s army southward, none seem inclined to
admit the fact, since the news of the Chattanooga battle has begun to
arrive, that Gen. Rosecrans is fighting the whole Southern Confederacy.

A
gentleman who left Falmouth a few days ago reported that there was no
rebel force in or near Fredericksburg to be seen. He also says that
there is only one brigade as low down as Germania, on the Rapidan. There
is only one squad of rebel troops now north of the Rappahannock and east
of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad.

The
Herald’s Washington dispatch
says the authorities have come to the conclusion that the draft will not
pay; under its process they obtain more money than ever, and the
character of the substitutes prevents worthy men from serving. It is
probable that the draft will be abandoned for a plan of volunteer
enlistment. One singular feature has been developed by the draft.
Numerous letters have been received from Senators and Representatives
who voted for the conscription, but not one of them has asked for a
construction of the law that would take a drafted man into the army, but
all have requested such a construction as would let a constituent escape
the draft.

•••••

In
the battle of Sunday near Chattanooga, the telegraph says, in one line,
“the number of killed and wounded will probably not fall short of
30,000.” It is a short but sad comment on the devastations of this
war, which in destructiveness has never been equalled. Yet we are
enjoined that to talk of peace or arrangement, or reunion by any measure
short of subjugation, is rank treason. There are three classes who join
in [this] cry: 1st, those who don’t go to the war, but get rich from
from its bloody products, and care for nothing but its continuance; 2d,
a complacent class, like some of our military, stump orators, who urged
that these hecatombs of killed men, were not missed; and 3d, a class of
Benthamite philosophers, who, like Beecher, declare that blood letting
is good for the health of the nation, and who don’t want the soldiers
ever to return. That is the way it stands. Only 30,000 killed and
wounded–a mere trifle! And Rosecrans undoubtedly defeated. Nothing!
Suspension of the habeas corpus and a new draft. Nothing! Greenbacks are prevalent,
and the printing presses that make them hold out.

Shelling,
and How the Missiles are Dodged.—A correspondent, writing
from Morris Island to the Christian
Advocate and Journal says:

At
night we can see the path of a shell through all its journey, lighted as
it is by the burning fuse. When the range is two miles, the track of a
shell from a mortar describes very near half the arc of a circle. On
leaving the mortar it gracefully moves on, climbing up and up into the
heavens, till it is nearly or quite a mile above the earth, and then it
glides along for a moment, apparently in a horizontal line; but quickly
you can see that the little fiery orb is on the home stretch, describing
the other segment of the circle.

A
shell from a Parrott rifled gun in going two and a half miles, deviates
from a straight line not quite as much as a shell from a mortar. But in
passing over this space considerable time is required. The report
travels much faster than the shot. A shell from a mortar will make a
distance of two miles in about thirty seconds, and from a Parrott gun in
about half that time. The flash of a gun at night, and the white smoke
by day, indicate the moment of the discharge, and fifteen or twenty
seconds give an abundance of time to find cover in a splinter proof,
behind a trench, or something else. It is wise and soldierly to do so,
but many pay no attention to these hissing, screaming, flying in the
daytime, if shot from a gun, invisible devils, except to crack jokes at
their expense; or occasionally one pays his life for his fool-hardiness.

•••••

Substitute
Swindler.—The sale of white men and boys is becoming an
ordinary traffic. It seems two or more police have been engaged in it.
The High Sheriff and jailor of a neighboring county speculated in it.
That honest men may not employ themselves in procuring substitutes we do
not say; but men should understand who they apply to. Here is an
incident; yesterday a substitute broker, one Israel Clark, of Boston,
arrived in this city with a young Irish lad named John McDonald, who he
disposed of to a conscript named John Wentworth, of Lebanon, for the sum
of $335. Of this amount the lad received $200. On receiving the money he
paid Clark $100 for taking care of him while sick at his house. Clark
asked him if he wanted some small bills, when the innocent lad received
in exchange for $30 the same amount in counterfeit fives on the New
England Bank of Boston. Clark was arrested near the Post Office, and is
now in the lock-up, but under the President’s habeas
corpus suspension, what rights has the boy? We do not see that he
has any–he is a “prisoner” if the officer in charge of the
conscripts says so.

THURSDAYSEPTEMBER 24,
1863THE
SALEM REGISTER (MA)

Prentice on Rebel Women.

A
lady, signing herself “Mary Ann,” writes a very abusive letter to
George D. Prentice, from Bloomfield, Ky. Mr. Prentice publishes it in
the Louisville Journal, and
after some pleasant gossip about the document, breaks out as follows:

“Seriously,
we have published the letter of our female correspondent at Bloomfield
just to show what sort of a thing the spirit of this rebellion can
transform a woman into, who probably was once a fair enough specimen of
human nature. If the rebellion were to accomplish all the good that its
craziest supporters ever hoped from it, it could never compensate for a
tithe of the evil it has done in the single item of the Satanization of
the feelings, the passions, the whole natures of a portion of the
portion of the American women.

“The
women of this country have been favored from childhood above those of
all other countries of the earth; they have enjoyed every blessing and
every privilege that the female heart in other quarters of the globe
ever dreamed of; they have grown up under the noblest flag that shone as
a star of heaven to them and a terrible bale-fire to their country’s
enemies, a flag to which the oppressed of all the world’s monarchies
and despotisms knelt as they might have knelt to the fiery cross seen by
Constantine in the sky; and yet, when this old flag, this honored and
battle-worn flag, in a season of the mightiest prosperity, without the
shadow of cause, without even a pretext that the utmost human ingenuity
could make plausible, was assailed by disappointed and maddened
politicians, thousands and tens of thousands of our women,
not stopping a moment to inquire into the right or the wrong, became
fiercer than the fiercest men against the glorious emblem of our
nationality, and in favor of rebellion with its whole long and dreadful
train of infernal horrors!

“We
do not speak now of all the rebel women, but we do speak of very many of
them. They jeered at the old banner of stars given us by our gray
fathers whenever they beheld it. They mocked it, they spit upon it, they
trampled it under foot, and were not ashamed! They seemed actuated by
nothing but an insane rage for change, novelty, innovation, revolution,
anarchy, tragedy, ruin, desolation. They hurled their words of fury
around them as a maniac would hurl coals of fire. They seemed to
transcend, in their taste for blood, even those female monsters, born of
the French revolution, who sat daily around the guillotine, laughing and
scoffing as the gleaming steel descended and the bloody heads rolled
gasping upon the ground. They literally compelled innumerable men and
boys, their own husbands, cousins, lovers, brothers, sons, who would
most gladly have remained at home, to take up arms and go into the rebel
armies. They are responsible for the deaths of thousands who have
perished of sickness, toil, hunger, sword, bullet, and bayonet.

“Thousands
of poor dead tongues, mute in all things else, are continually bearing
evil testimony against them from far and unknown and undistinguishable
gravers, and from plains and thickets and hills and swamps where where
unburied skeletons gleam with ghastly whiteness upon the earth’s
surface. We are sometimes unable to gaze upon the female inciters of the
terrible rebellion, however comely they may be in form or feature, and
realize at the moment that they are human. Their eyes look at us like
tomb fires, their mouths like trenches for the dead, their noses like
heaps of bones, their bosoms like tumuli over mortal dust, and the rose
hues upon their cheeks like the foul blood stains of battle and
massacre. The whole atmosphere around them seems surcharged with visible
death and horror.->

“There
are at this day in the rebel armies great numbers of young men who would
gladly return home but dare not. They are afraid, not of male relatives and
friends at home, but female. They understand that, if they were to leave the
service to which in an evil hour they devoted themselves, they would be
under the ban of the bitter indignation and scorn of rebel women. These
women, we mean only the portion of them we have been referring to, incapable
of remorse or regret for all the ruin they have wrought, are keeping up
their unnatural and most accursed work. But for them the prospect of speedy
peace would be far better than it is. We believe that the men North and
South could come together if rebel women did not hold them apart. These
builders of pyramids of skulls do whatever they can, by all the arts of
provocation and encouragement and blandishment, to keep up the strife. We
will not say that in this they unsex themselves; we will do no such
injustice to the male sex.”

•••••

Rebel
Barbarism at Wagner.—Men are busy around Wagner digging up
torpedoes. Thirty-five have been brought to light since evacuation. A number
of rebel prisoners were taken to the fort the other day, and made to point
out the spot where every torpedo was buried, under penalty of being shot if
they practised any deception. It seems that quite a large space in front of
Wagner is completely filled with them. Inside the bomb proof, a large door
opening into a magazine is regarded with suspicion. It is thought that a
fuse has been so placed that it will become ignited when the door opens, and
so cause an explosion. Prisoners state that the magazine is filled with
ammunition. One of the most inhuman acts that has perpetrated since the war
commenced was attempted to be carried out by the rebels on the night of the
evacuation. According to the statement of a wounded man discovered in the
bomb-proof, he had been lying in dying condition for four days.

The
rebels refused to give him even a swallow of water to quench his thirst, and
told him when they left that he could not possibly live, and had better,
before dying, do as much for the cause as lay in his power. That he might
benefit from this advice, they placed in his hand a string attached to a
fuse communicating with the magazine before alluded to, with instructions to
pull it when the fort was well filled with Yankees, and so send them all,
himself included, into eternity. But the wounded rebel, although almost dead
when our men entered the fort, had a faint hope that perhaps he might live
if properly attended, and gave that as a reason for not pulling the string.
He was taken to an ambulance, and died while being conveyed to the hospital.

FRIDAYSEPTEMBER 25,
1863THE
LIBERATOR (MA)

Too
Late.

The
self-evident lie, that Jeff Davis was about to free and arm a host of
slaves to fight for the Confederacy, has crossed the water in its
travels, and is now coming home to roost. The English press, of course,
was divided between accepting and rejecting the absurd report. They lent
it no credit who had sense to read suicide in an act of emancipation by
a State of which slavery was at once the corner-stone and normal social
condition; or who failed to recognize the connection between the means
of freedom and the end of political supremacy founded on a system of
bondage. The Tory journals, on the contrary, with a credulity which is
the offspring of their ardor in behalf of men-stealers, swallowed the
bait without a question; and whereas President Lincoln’s Proclamation
of January 1st, and his subsequent policy of risking Negro regiments,
they had found only the grossest inhumanity and barbarism, they now
applauded the intention of the arch-rebel as a master-stroke of policy,
whose moral effect on Europe would be incalculable. They will learn
quickly enough how vain is their exultation–how dull they are of
comprehension. The hour has passed when was possible the mockery of a
slave taking arms to rivet his own chains more tightly. That hour
sounded one year ago this week, and almost day. Then, between the
President’s warning of Sept. 22d and the imperishable act of New
Year’s day, we did have fears that the rebel leaders might content
themselves with separation instead of conquest; might, for the sake of a
disrupted Union, throw away, or pretend to throw away, their hopes of
empire over a slave ridden land. By summoning their hapless bondmen to
freedom and to battle, they could have rendered impossible the military
subjugation of the South, and would in all probability have secured at
once the recognition and moral and material support of foreign nations.
The time was favorable. The Federal Government had not yet appeared to
the straining eyes in the Southern prison-house as savior and deliverer.
Its treatment of the fugitive was marked with cruel uncertainty and
inconsistency; and the policy of each General or his underlings passed
for law in his department. Cases of shocking outrage were of common
occurrence, and the numerous victims returned to the vengeance of their
masters were the couriers of distrust in our advancing armies, and in
the flag which covered them. The time was favorable and ample, but it
was unimproved; and it is now too late.

Yes,
all too late are the efforts, North or South, to preserve the
patriarchal institution in America. Slavery, of all social systems,
cannot afford to be disturbed; and yet, in no single State of the old
Union does it remain as it was before the outbreak of the rebellion.
Wherever our armies have penetrated, the relation of master and slave
has either been completely annihilated or fundamentally altered; our
armies are still marching on! Of the Border States, Missouri is united
upon the necessity of emancipation–divided upon the means. Maryland is
agitating the same question, urged to it by the awakening sense of her
best citizens, and by her uncomfortable position between the free
District of Columbia and the free State of Pennsylvania. Already a black
regiment, raised ->

from
her midst, has paraded the streets of her chief city, hardly yet dry
from the blood of Northern soldiery. Already her fugitives, who escape en
masse, begin to arm themselves with muskets, and to use them in case
of hindrance. Delaware has as emancipationist for her Governor. So has
Tennessee, at whose capital is encamped, (if it be not already with
Rosecrans,) a newly formed Negro regiment, pioneer of many to spring up
shortly under the auspices of the War Department as embodied in Major
Stearns. Black troops are the ministers of retributive justice in
destroying Charleston, the focus of rebellion and slavery. Black troops
preserved to us the city of New Orleans, and now stand guard at
Vicksburg, Port Hudson and Baton Rouge. Slavery is doomed. Come
struggle, come quiet, the sum of all villainies is crumbling into the
mould of the past.

No
promise of freedom to the ear–no bribe to foreign sympathy–no
success in the field, even–can disappoint, however much postpone, this
consummation, which is the prayer of all good men, and the just demand
of the present age.

“A
private letter from an American gentleman now in Great Britain, where he
enjoys excellent opportunities of information, was received yesterday.

“The
writer says that a remarkable change has come over the public opinion of
England within the last few weeks. It now favors the North as strongly
as it has heretofore favored the South. Among the distinguished converts
is Mr. Gladstone, who will take an early opportunity of declaring
himself the friend of the Union. The writer is assured upon high
authority that the rebel rams will not be permitted to sail, or that if
they do sail they will each be escorted by an English ironclad,
instructed to prevent them from violating the neutrality of Britain. It
is added that large amount of capital is awaiting settlement of the ram
question, in order to seek investment in American securities. Our recent
victories are regarded as the cause of this change of front by
England.”

•••••

Colored
Seamen in the Navy.—An unofficial estimate of the number of
colored seamen in the Navy shows that there are now about 5,000 in that
branch of the public service. They were originally introduced as cooks
and stewards, and for years were not seen on deck. Long before the war,
however, they were allowed in the “after guard,” and got along so
well with the sailors and marines that the propriety of putting them in
“the top” soon became apparent. At present they are seamen, ordinary
seamen, landsmen, and boys–the marine corps and the ward-room being
the only portions of a man-of-war from which they are excluded.

SATURDAYSEPTEMBER 26, 1863THE
SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN (MA)

Review
of the Week.

In
Virginia.

The
report is received every few days that our army in Virginia is
advancing. It is now said it has crossed the Rapidan and will march upon
Gordonsville. There can be no doubt that Gen. Lee has sent some portion
of his army to Bragg and Johnston in Georgia. It is doubted, however,
that the numbers of his troops have been seriously diminished, as his
and all the rebel armies have been rapidly filling up with conscripts.
The conscription is universal and remorseless in rebeldom, and every man
and boy that can hold a gun is considered able bodied and forced into
the ranks, and there can be no doubt that the rebel armies are now as
strong in numbers as they have been at any previous time. If Gen.
Meade’s advance is a real one he will not find the road to Richmond
clear, unless indeed, Gen. Lee shall adopt the strategy employed by
Bragg, and retreat for the purpose of compelling Meade to fight at a
distance from his base of supply and reinforcement. If that is Lee’s
policy it ends the campaign in Virginia for the season, for Gen. Meade
is too prudent to take the obvious risks of an overland march to
Richmond. Gen. Meade was in Washington a few hours on Wednesday, in
consultation with the president, Gen. Halleck and Secretary Stanton,
when the plan of the campaign in Virginia was probably agreed upon.
Guerrillas are less troublesome than they have been within or lines, and
our cavalry are able to keep the country pretty clear. The sutlers are
the chief sufferers at present, and they are combining for mutual
protection.

As
to Charleston.

Hope
is still deferred as to the fall of Charleston. The equinoctial storm
suspended the operations of the fleet for about a week, and it was all
they could do to care for their own safety against the assailing
elements. The monitors rode out the storm, however, and so disappointed
the hopes of the rebels that the equinoctial would come to their relief.
There seems to be nothing that the fleet can do at present but pound
away again upon obstinate Sumter, which has been reinforced and its
ruins strengthened, and refuses to be taken. The obstructions in the
harbor have not been removed, nor do any available means for their
removal yet present themselves, and Beauregard has established some new
and heavy guns just received from England in batteries commanding the
harbor, and relies upon them to blow our fleet out of the water, if they
venture up beyond Sumter. About the only thing to be done at present is
to rain Greek fire on the city and destroy it, and that Gen. Gilmore is
nearly ready to do, having received a fresh and full supply of the
destructive missiles. The enemy keep up an incessant fire upon our works
on Morris Island, doing very little damage. It is suggested that the
fleet may go up and take Wilmington, N. C., while Gen. Gilmore is
preparing for the final assault. It would be a good thing to do, as the
blockade of that port amounts to nothing, and the rebels are receiving
large supplies through it. The rebels made signs of an attempt one night
last week to drive our troops from Folly Island, but precautions for
defense were taken, and they did not appear. Gen. Gilmore cannot be
dislodged from Morris Island, and Charleston must therefore ultimately
fall and its defenses be abandoned. How soon it is impossible to say,
and we may as well be patient.

•••••

Bad
State of Things in Washington.—The Washington correspondent
of the Boston Traveller paints
an unpleasant picture of life in Washington:

“It
is useless to deny that the war has, in a measure, polluted the tastes
of the people, bringing, as it has unmistakably, a train of evils to the
doors of Washington previously but little known, until it is saddening
to behold the utter degeneracy of the people, particularly the middle
classes, to-day. The stranger cannot fail to observe the large number of
jabbering foreign rowdies who congregate at the corners of the different
streets. Many of these fellows are exiled vagabonds, who are here on the
lookout for the first dishonest government official who has something to
sell. It makes no difference whether the property be confiscated
furniture, captured horses or quartermaster’s or commissary stores,
the purchaser has no principles to lose, and why should he be scrupulous
in making a bargain. There are scores of professional gamblers here from
New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston, plying their arts most
dexterously to inveigle as many unsuspecting officers and soldiers as
possible into their meshes, after the paymaster has been round, and in
which, I am sorry to say, they often succeed, robbing the foolish men of
every cent of their hard earnings. Brazen-faced harlots promenade the
avenue, and dash through the streets in open barouches, dressed in the
most dashy costume, their faded features covered with chalk and rouge.
Half intoxicated rowdies roll the streets in open carriages, smoking
their cigars and shouting indecent language. In fact, gambling,
licentiousness, drunkenness, and every species of evil, run riot
throughout the city, until now profligacy reigns supreme. I would like
to tell you a few facts in relation to the ‘intelligent hotels’ of
this dusty place, and of the recherché style in which nothing is saved.
But enough of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

1Could
no one manage simple addition in the 19th century? Yes, the total is
actually 42,000–which, if 50,000 is added thereto, comes to 92,000,
not 96,000.